4^^T^ 



Sbptttty 



OF 



OUT THE PROPOSITION 



To amend the Constitution of the V. States, 



RESPECTING THE 



ELECTION OF PRESIDENT # VICE PRESIDENT. 



DEIIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
FEBRUARY 17, 1826. 



PRINTED BY GAEES 8f SEATON. 
1826. 






THE following resolutions being under consideration! in Cofh= 
mittee of the Whole— 

" Resolved, That r for the purpose of electing the President and Vice President of 
the United States, the Constitution ought to be so ameuded, that a uniform system of 
roting by districts, shall be established in all the States; and that the Constitution 
oughtto be further amended, in such manner as will prevent the election of the afore- 
said officers from devolving upon the respective Houses of Congress. 

Resolved, That a Select Committee be appointed, with instructions to prepare and 
report a joint resolution, embraciag the aforesaid objects." 

Mr. S TORRS, of New York, addressed the Committee as fol- 
lows : 

The propositions to amend the Constitution, now before us, 
which have been submitted by the honorable gentleman from South 
Carolina, (Mr. McDuffie,) are not altogether new to our delibera- 
tions. So much of them as proposes to change the present mode 
of electing the President and Vice President, by establishing with- 
in the several States a uniform system of voting by districts, was 
introduced into this House at the last session of the Sixteenth 
Congress and finally rejected. The other branch of the amend- 
ment which takes the second election from Congress is now for 
the first time, at least since I have had the honor of a seat here, 
presented for examination. 

It becomes us, Sir, in my humble opinion, to approach this sub- 
ject with the profoundest reverence for this Constitution, as the 
work of that illustrious body of patriots and statesmen, who seem 
to have been raised up by Providence at that peculiarly eventful 
period, to guide by their eminent wisdom and exalted public vir- 
tue, the councils of that convention, the result of whose delibera- 
tions was to fix the future destinies of this great empire of freedom. 
They were men originally highly gifted by nature and deeply 
versed in political knowledge — they had been educated in the prin- 
ciples of civil liberty, and well understood the temper and genius 
of their country, its interests and the spirit of its institutions. 
They justly considered chat the Government which was then to be 
framed was to be adapted to an educated and enlightened coun- 
try, and to be sustained by moral sentiment and the political virtue 
and justice of the People. The lights of experience and history 
which these men followed, were neither " few, faint, or glimmer- 
ing" in their eyes — and I might, perhaps, with rather more justice 
than was shown by the honorable gentleman from South Carolina, 
reverse the opinion which he pronounced on their comparative 
merits, and say that the most ordinary member of that convention 
knew more of the true principles of the Constitution than the 
whole common mass of politicians in our day. The well known 
encomium recorded in history, which the virtues of this class of 
men elicited, during the Revolution, from a British Senate, was no 



less just and candid than honorable to them, as the testimony of 
the first statesman of that age and country. They were men who 
made no extraordinary or officious pretensions to patriotism, but are 
best known to our generation by their works and the blessings which 
this great and prosperous nation now enjoys. For sound views of 
the theory of government, just application of political principles 
and as the purest models of eloquence, the public papers of the 
statesmen of our Revolution have never been excelled and will 
long remain unrivalled. 

The times, too, were auspicious to the work before them. The 
pressure of public calamity had purified the souls of men — the com- 
mon dangers of the Revolution had bound the country together as 
brethren of one family — its sufferings had taught them the value 
of liberty, the necessity of union, and mutual forbearance with 
each other, and the preciousness of the inheritance which was to 
descend to us, their children. No selfish passions or unhallowed 
purposes of ambition tainted the hearts of those who were called 
to that convention by their countrymen. The wisdom and the 
works of such men are not to be handled with temerity, and I may 
surely be permitted to speak for myself, as one of many yet scarce- 
ly in the seventh year of an apprenticeship here, when I say that 
instead of flattering ourselves that we have become wiser than they, 
we should rather distrust our own political knowledge, as well as 
our ability to add any substantial or valuable improvement to a sys- 
tem of government, which came from the hands of men who seem to 
havebeen moved by the influence of inspiration its If. I trust that on 
an occasion so serious as this, we shall lay aside all prejudices 
and feeling, and remember that, when we tread this sacred path, 
we move on holy ground. 

It would have been more satisfactory and we might have formed 
a better opinion of the operation of the plan which the honorable 
mover of this amendment intends finally to introduce, had he fur- 
nished us at once with all the details of his system. The naked pro- 
positions, which alone are involved in the resolutions as they now 
stand, might then have been entitled, perhaps, to more comparative 
merit than can be allowed to them as merely insulated principles. 
They may deserve more or less favor in our judgments, as they 
may or may not be connected with distributions of the electoral 
power, which shall preserve more or less of the original political 
system of the Constitution. As the honorable gentleman has not 
favored us with any particular details, we must consider these pro- 
positions chiefly on the intrinsic merits which they deserve as ope- 
rating to expunge these particular features of the Constitution — and 
in this view of their expediency, the? propose an entire and radical 
change of the principles on which the whole structure of the political 
system of the General Government is founded. The most difficult 
question which presented itself for adjustment to the Federal Con- 
vention, was this distribution of the electoral power in the choice 
of the Executive. The peculiar difficulties which pressed the con- 
vention on this delicate point, were at last overcome and it was 
finally arranged on principles much more satisfactory than the best 



friends of the Constitution, at one time, supposed the form of the 
confederacy would admit of among them, consistently with the sepa- 
rate sovereignty of the States and the preservation of the just relative 
influence and interests of each.This part of the plan of the FederalGo- 
vernment was received in the State Conventions with less objection 
than almost any other. The State Conventions well understood 
the basis and principles of union on which the Government rest- 
ed, and in all the discussions which the Constitution produced in 
these Conventions, it was scarcely denied or questioned by any, 
th at in this particular the plan was the wisest and best which the 
Convention could have devised to secure the objects of the Union. 
It can hardly be inferred that those conventions could have mis- 
taken their own views, or that the future operations of this part ot 
the system were not clearly foreseen and well understood. 

The structure of this part of the Constitution has also been re- 
vised and amended under the administration and influence of many 
of those who first put the Government into operation. It is well 
worth our notice, too, that this revision and amendmeat took place 
at a period immediately succeeding the contingency which devolv- 
ed the election of a President on the House of Representatives and 
when the evils of an election by that body, whatever they may 
have been, were directly in the view of those who proposed that 
amendment. It was also a time when the prevailing doctrines 
were peculiarly auspicious to the success of any fancied improve- 
ment which should infuse into the system a larger portion of popu- 
lar power in the Presidential election, if such an object was more 
consonant to its original principles. The professed object of the 
Congress of 1802 was also not so much to change the distribution 
of the elective power as to give that true constitutional impulse to 
the system, which was alleged to have departed, in its practical ope- 
ration, from its primary intention of carrying into effect the will of 
the majority of the People. Whether this has, in fact, been the only 
result of the amendment then adopted, it is not material to this part 
of the discussion to inquire. If, however, it has led to consequences 
which were not then foreseen, or if feared, not effectually guarded 
against, we may now be admonished of the dangers which com- 
monly follow every disturbance of the fundamental principles of 
any settled form of Government, however speciously amendments 
may be maintained or however highly we may estimate our own 
foresight. The principles on which the political revolution of 1801 
was founded would also have tended powerfully to promote the 
result which the amendment, now offered to the House, assumes to 
be so desirable. Those who then came into power out of the po- 
litical struggles during the previous administration, rested much of 
their claims to public confidence on their support of the Rights of 
the People. During the administration of Mr. Jefferson, this con- 
fidence secured the political power of the Republican party — and 
yet, Mr. Chairman, during the whole period of that administration, 
this amendment of the Constitution, which is now pressed upon us 
as so clearly indispensable and vital to the system, escaped the at- 
tention of the keen-sighted politicians of those days, or if consi- 



6 

dered at all, was never presented to the People as an amendment 
called for by the principles on which their power was established. 
The dangers of an election by the House of Representatives were 
then fairly and directly before the Congress and the country; and 
if it is now so palpable that such an election contains within itself 
the alarming innate constitutional principles of corruption, of 
which we have heard so much from the honorable gentleman from 
South Carolina, it must be somewhat unaccountable and we must 
reflect upon it with wonder,thatthe sagacity of the statesmen of Mr. 
Jefferson's Administration had not detected and reformed this vi- 
cious inclination of the system. 

Whatever may prove in the final vote of the House, to be the 
result of this discussion, it is, perhaps, not to be regretted that the 
propositions now before the committee have been moved. The 
subject has certainly excited some interest in many of the States 
and our deliberations here may, perhaps, tend to develop the 
real effect to be produced by the amendment and place its expe- 
diency in public opinion on its true merits, whatever they may 
be. In the course of the remarks of the honorable gentleman from 
South Carolina, he was pleased to derive many of his illustrations 
from the past course of political events in the State which I have 
the honor, in part, to represent — and I am not disposed to deny 
that such has been, sometimes, the effect of her domestic dissen- 
sions on her true interests and prosperity at home and her just 
influence in the Union, that many useful lessons may be derived 
from her experience. The evils which have afflicted that State 
may chiefly be traced to an arrangement of the power of appoint- 
ment in her original Constitution, unsuited to the times which fol- 
lowed its adoption, and the great extent of State patronage which 
has been the necessary consequence of her increase in population 
and wealth, and the great variety of those political institutions 
which have resulted from her prosperity. Ferocious systems of 
politics, demoralizing institutions of party and intolerant pro- 
scriptions ot virtuous and honorable men have sometimes stained 
her annals and destroyed her moral power. But, sir, the People 
there have laid their own reforming hand on their political institu- 
tions. Their present Constitution has dispersed the distribution 
of that enormous accumulation of patronage, which tended to pol- 
lute the administration of her Government — the old spirit of party 
now merely lingers for a while around a miserable remnant of its 
former idolatry and public men must there be now brought to the 
standard of unbiassed public opinion and tested by their politi- 
cal virtue. 

The honorable gentleman has referred us to a recent event, as 
an expression of the true sense of the People of that State in 
favor of a part of the amendment embraced in his resolutions. I 
shall, certainly, at all times feel the highest respect for the opin- 
ions of that People and especially on a mere question of expedien- 
cy. But, in looking to the late vote of that State in favor of a 
district system in the Presidential election, I do not find in it that 
Satisfactory evidence of their wishes which I should desire to bave 



on every question affecting their State interests, before I yield up 
my own opinion. The census taken nearly a year ago, shows that 
the State then contained nearly two hundred and seventy-sixthou- 
sand qualified voters, and I believe that their number is rather un- 
derrated when I estimate that at the last November election three 
hundred thousand electors were entitled to vote on that question. 
Now, sir, the returns of the vote show, that on that proposition, 
about two-thirds of the electors of that State expressed no opinion 
whatever. The whole number of persons who voted both for a 
general ticket and district system, was only about one-third of the 
State ; and, of this number, only a majority of some six or eight 
thousand preferred the district system, and the whole vote in favor 
of the district system was but a comparatively small part, about 
sixty or seventy thousand out of nearly three hundred thousand 
^lectors. 

/ Though, as a general rule, I should not offer here or elsewhere, 
any other criterion by which we should judge of public sentiment, 
than the sense of the People expressed in its proper constitution- 
al forms, yet when, on this peculiar subject and occasion, I am 
referred to such a vote of my own State as evidence of the actual 
wish of that People, I must be permitted to doubt if there is just- 
ly to be derived from it any fair or satisfactory conclusion of the 
state of public opinion on this matter. This vote is susceptible 
too, of other explanations, which authorize us to make a very 
large deduction from the value of the illustration which was 
drawn from it by the honorable gentleman from South Carolina. 
The time and circumstances under which this question was pre- 
sented to the People of that State, were peculiarly unfavorable for 
eliciting a full and fair expression of public sentiment upon the 
expediency of the proposition. The course of political events in 
the State, for some years past, is well known here. In the reno- 
vation of her Constitution, they had been lately thrice called to 
the polls of the election. Scarcely had the agitation of that refor- 
mation of her system and the subsequent elections of her State 
and local officers subsided, and every thing seemed to promise 
her along respite, if not lasting repose, from her severe and bitter 
trials, when an insane Legislature,under the influence of infatuated 
and desperate party councils, shamelessly bid defiance to the known 
public will and dared to try their strength against the mighty in- 
dignation of an insulted People. They found themselves again 
called to a new and unexpected contest with corrupt and lawless 
authority and when the anxious crisis of their moral power arriv- 
ed, they rose in the strength of freemen, and, breaking the feeble 
chains of party, overwhelmed the usurpers of their rights in one 
common and undistinguishable destruction. When, sir, history, 
faithful to the day in which we live, shall record her annals, the 
long train of ruins which followed that tempest of popular indig- 
nation, shall mark out her path to future times. Having success- 
fully wrested from the Legislature this right so Ion* and unjust- 
ly withheld, the People of that State, exhausted in these repeated 
political conflicts, relapsed from the high excitement of that i ter- 
esting period and reposed in too confident security. It was in 



8 

this state of comparative apathy that a specious and insidious pro- 
position to district that State was presented to them. In this re- 
pose, they have been shorn of their strength in the election of the 
President, and suspicions have prevailed, not founded on slight ob- 
servation of past events or imperfect judgment of the future, that 
the tendency of this suicidal policy may chiefly be to paralyze 
her State power and influence and enable party leaders to bring 
into market a large share of her electoral votes, who would other- 
wise despair of success on a general ticket throughout the State. 

Before I proceed to the particular merits of the amendments 
now before us, I will ask the attention of the committee to an ex- 
amination of some parts of the political structure of the Constitu- 
tion and the principles on which the elective power, in the choice 
of the President, was organized. In reforming this system of 
Government, it is necessary that we should first form for ourselves 
just views of what these principles really are. It will not answer, 
on so grave a subject, to assume that they were, or ought to be 
what we may merely desire them to have been; and then deduce 
from any hypothesis of our own merely, the expediency of im- 
provements which we propose to engraft upon the system aud 
their consistency with the original principles of the Constitution 
itself. The honorable gentleman from South Carolina assumed 
as first principles throughout the whole course of his remarks, 
that the original adjustment of the electoral power was intended 
to obtain the sense of a majority of the People of the United States, 
in the election of the President ; and he reasons throughout on the 
assumption that in this adjustment we find the introduction of the 
democratic representative principle into the system — that the plan of 
a district system, which his amendment proposes,is most congenial 
to the spirit and intention of the Constitution in the operation of 
the elective power and that the general ticket system tends to 
subvert and defeat the fair expression of the will of a majority of 
the People in the election. If these positions (and I hfve endea- 
vored to state them with precision and fairness) are not sustained 
by the Constitution, the foundation on which this part of the 
amendment and the argument for its adoption rests, are unsound 
in principle— they carry with them no recommendations to our 
favor or support, and every conclusion which has been drawn 
from the various views in which the operation of this part of the 
amendment has beeu presented to us must be essentially vicious. 

I concur in the opinion expressed by the honorable gentleman, 
that the exercise of the power of choosing the Presidential Elec- 
tors by the State Legislatures is neither warranted by any fan- 
construction of the Constitution nor the spirit of the system. My 
opinion, however, of the unconstitutionality of that assumption of 
power is founded on views of the principles of the Constitution, 
essentially different from those on which his amendment is found- 
ed. I shall have occasion to notice this point in another part of 
my remarks and will not stop to examine it here. 

The first inquiry, then, directly before us, and which must be an- 
swered before we can proceed to any illustration of the true char 



9 

ter and effect this amendment, is, What are the true consti- 
tutional principles on which this elective power was adjusted f 
I dissent entirely, Mr. Chairman, from every fundamental 
position which the honorable gentleman has assumed and hope 
to be able to convince this Committee that the amendment 
cannot be sustained on any principles which can be found in this 
Constitution. 

The great end to be accomplished in the formation of the Con- 
stitution was the establishment of a national government which 
should be adequate to the objects, in which, as one People we had 
common interests and which at the same time should preserve 
in the adjustment of the principles of the system, the just influence 
and power of the several States of the Confederacy. The parties 
to this compact came together in the character of separate and in- 
dependent sovereignties. They were distinct sovereign communis 
ties of People, but in all that related to their external relations and 
their common security, as well as in much that concerned their do- 
mestic and internal prosperity their true and obvious policy was 
the same. The formation of a common government for any of 
these purposes, however, was attended with great moral and prac- 
tical difficulties. The natural situation and advantages of some of 
the States and the character and habits of the People had led them 
to look to commerce and navigation as one of the chief sources of 
their future prosperity. Other causes, combined with some of 
these, had in some degree established a different policy in other 
States, more suited to the existing state of their particular interests 
and social institutions and perhaps more compatible with their 
safety. They differed greatly trom each other in relative power 
and population and it was foreseen that many causes arising from 
the peculiar advantages (and especially from the crown lands 
within their territorial limits,) which some of them possessed, would 
necessarily increase this disparity in future. In several of the 
States there existed common political interests peculiar in their 
character, and closely connected with their internal peace and se- 
curity — perhaps their very existence — which these States could 
never safely subject in any degree to the operation of any system 
not under their own direct and exclusive control. Public opinion, 
arising in a considerable degree from difference of situation and 
interests, education and particular habits of thinking, had estab- 
lished in many of the States different notions upon many of the 
principles which enter into the distribution of political power in 
representative government — and, although in the great original 
outlines of that system the Constitutions of the State governments 
were organized on the same general principles, yet we were not 
in this as well as in other respects, altogether a homogeneous Peo- 
ple. It was a most difficult and delicate matter, calling for all the 
sagacity, prudence and forbearance as well as political wisdom of 
the ablest and purest men, to reconcile in any way, and to unite 
even for the most clearly desirable ends, under one frame of go^ 
vernment, the various and distinct, if not in some respeQts incqrv 



10 

gruous and repugnant interests of the parties to the Federal Con* 
stitution. If the secret history of the Convention shall ever, as it 
probably will, be fully disclosed, we may perhaps find that at one 
time its actual dissolution was considered as hardly problematical. 
By the then existing systems of government, the security of all 
these various interests of the several States was confided under 
their own constitutional forms of government to legislatures im- 
mediately responsible to them alone. It was to these bodies that 
the protection of their civil rights was directly entrusted. The 
power and resources of the States were in the hands of these legis- 
latures as the immediate guardians of the common political inter- 
ests of the People who created them. In the formation of a com- 
pact between the People of the respective States, which should 
create a more extended and combined national government and 
confederated Republic, they were called upon to take from their 
S ate Legislatures many of the powers of sovereignty which had 
been vested in them, and to confer those powers on the Federal 
Government. In the distribution not only of those powers, but in 
all those which should be incidentally accessary to the new sys- 
tem, they were most sensibly alive to the security of their separate 
interests and the preservation of their just relative political influ- 
ence in that peculiar system which was to be established more or 
less on the basis of the popular principle of a representation of the 
People of the several States, as different sovereign communities. 
In the adjustment of the Executive power of the Union in all its 
branches, the Convention were met with the full pressure of these 
various influences. It was natural that the People of a country 
on which the hand of tyranny had so recently inflicted the most 
frightful calamities of despot's vengeance, should look to the or- 
ganization of the elective and executive power with the keenest 
suspicion and most watchful jealousy. The example of other coun^ 
tries, too, was before them. It was this power which in all Go- 
vernments was most disposed to strengthen itself, and which, in 
this, might find its policy in weakening those interests and influ- 
ences to be here secured by the Constitution to the People of the 
several States and which might obstruct its path. Experience 
may indeed have shown in the operation of the Government, 
that those fears which were entertained when this Constitution 
was presented to the People for their adoption, were more or less 
unfounded and that the Executive power is in truth, much weaker 
than it was theoretically supposed to be. Be that as it may, we 
are seeking in this discussion to ascertain the true principles on 
which this power was intended to be adjusted by the framers of 
the Constitution and the People of the several States who adopted 
it. It is then, Sir, in my opinion, a compact between the People 
of the several States with each other of the respective States, as 
distinct, sovereign, political and primary communities. It is not 
to be treated as the creature of the State Legislatures. These were 
not parties, as Legislatures, in any sense, to this compact. The 
Constitution throughout speaks of the parties to the compact in 
the character of such distinct State communities. It was to be 



11 

ratified by the Conventions of " the States" The House of Repre - 
sentatives is composed of members chosen by u the People" of the 
" several States." Representation and direct taxes were to be 
apportioned among the several " States." Each " State" shall 
have at least one Representative. The Senate shall be composed of 
two Senators from "each State," chosen by the "Legislature "there- 
of." In the choice of a President by the House of Representa- 
tives, the votes shall be taken by * States"— the " Representation 
from each State having one vote." The Judicial power shall reach 
all cases between two or more "States" &c. and between " « 
State," or the citizens " thereof \" and " foreign States." The 
sense in which this term is so obviously used throughout the Con- 
stitution, is founded on the principle which I have before stared, 
and there is not, in my judgment, a single instance in which it 
has been used in that instrument, which does not fairly admit of 
that construction which is so much in harmony with the moral and 
political considerations which entered into the structure of the 
Government. It is true that the legislative power operates equally 
on the People of the several States and their political rights and 
duties are commou — and, so far as the Government, incidentally 
from its structure and more directly in the system of general 
legislation conferred on Congress in certain enumerated powers, 
produces that equality, it must be considered as a national or mu- 
nicipal system and as emanating from the People of the United 
States as one common mass — and it seems to me that, in this 
point, the supporters of State rights have commonly mistaken the 
just foundation of their principles and endeavored to derive from 
mere rules applicable to the construction of tbeee grants of power, 
the great principles of security to the rights reserved to the States 
in this system of government and its operation. This reservation 
and these securities lie, in my opinion, in very different parts of 
the system and in none are they more vitally concerned than in 
the distribution of the electoral power which we are now consider- 
ing. It is a great error to treat this system as founded on the 
pure, popular, representative principle (which the amendment 
professes to adopt) in the structure of any branch of the government. 
The Senate is established on no such basis. The composition of 
the Representation of the States in this House is governed by no 
such rule. There is one interest which goes to make up the rela- 
tive numerical power of some of the States here, which directly 
subverts the whole foundation of popular representation in a free 
government, and the smaller States are secured one Representa- 
tive at least, on principles which have no necessary connexion with 
the population of those States. The distribution of the electoral 
power in the choice of the President by the several States, has been 
graduated among them by their collective numerical power in this 
House and the Senate, which carries in it the ingredient of all the 
federative as well as representative principles which entered into 
this political system. The compromise which produced this Con- 
stitution is illustrated by these views of the subject. The repre- 
sentation in the Senate secured the equal power of the State sove- 



it 

t-eignties (not their Legislatures,) in Congress, and in other fe* 
spects these sovereignties there hold the exercise of the Executive 
power, in some degree, under their own control. The slave-hold- 
ing States retained in their representation in this House an ade- 
quate security for that interest, and the compensation, whatever 
may have since proved to be its value, which the free States re- 
ceived for that concession is also to be found ia the same instru- 
ment. The deductions which I draw from these first principles ot 
the Constitution, are, that in the election of President, the expression 
t)f the will of the People of the several States, as distinct political com- 
munities* was intended to be preserved inviolably in that election. 
The primary object of the exercise of that elective power was not 
to collect the sense of the' People of the United States as one com- 
mon mass, but as representing the will of separate independent 
Republics. They, as the People of the several States, were the 
parties to the compact and not the State Legislatures. A con- 
struction different from this is not in harmony with the nature and 
analogies of the constitution, and goes to expunge the expression 
of the public sentiment of the People, as States, totally from the 
election. The exclusion of the power of the State Legislatures 
from the choice of the President, must be the necessary political 
consequence of this view of the system, unless we admit that it may 
have been the design of the framers of the Constitution to give it an 
effect which might render the President the mere creature of the 
StateLegislatures,in known hostility to the popular will of the States. 
It is not an answer to say that the State Legislatures represent the 
will of the State sovereignties. They do so on all the points of pow* 
er conferred upon them by the People of the States; but this right 
of choosing the electors for President is derived from the Consti- 
tution of the General Government* and conferred on and fixed in 
the People themselves. That part of the Constitution which treats 
of the choice of electors, is, in my opinion, perfectly reconcileable 
with the principles which I have advanced and cannot fairly re- 
ceive any other interpretation. The spirit of the compact and 
structure of the system conform to such an exposition of the terms. 
It is said, that u Each State shall appoint, in such manner as 
M the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors 
*' equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to 
*'■ which the State may be entitled in the Congress." If, by the 
word State, is here meant, as in other parts of the Constitution* 
the different communities of People which constitute these bodies 
politic and the Constitution did not intend a departure, in this 
particular instance, from that sense, the interpretation of this 
clause is clear and especially more so, if the popular will was at 
all times to be preserved as a constituent ingredient in the Presi- 
dential election. The absurdity of the consequences to which a 
contrary construction would lead, is a strong argument to show 
that this power was never to be left to the State Legislatures* 
The Constitution has prescribed that Representatives shall be 
chosen by the persons entitled to vote for the most numerous 
branch of the State Legislatures ; but has not directly fixed thfe 



is 

qualifications of voters for the Presidential election. Under the 
notion of a broad discretion vested in the State Legislatures, those 
bodies might devolve the choice of the electors on a different class 
of citizens, and of other qualifications, Nay, Sir, there can be 
nothing to prevent them from vesting that power, if they have it, 
in a board of Bank directors — a turnpike corporation — or a syna- 
gogue: The consequences which have flowed from this assump- 
tion of power by the State Legislaturess and its effect at times on 
tne result of the Presidential election, to say nothing of its frequent 
abuse, have been well stated by the honorable gentleman from 
Sou«h Carolina. 1 am not disposed to differ with him in opinion 
on the course of the Legislature of my own State in this matter. 
New York has not. however, been the only State in which this pow- 
er has been assumed by the Legislature. In the State of South 
Carolina, the People have not exercised this right and the direct 
expression of the popular will of that State in the election has not 
been heard since the adoption of the Constitution: I hope, that, 
when the People of that State come to its full enjoyment, they 
will not be compelled to receive, as it came to the People off New 
York, in the humiliating form of a favor that constitutional fran- 
chise which South Carolina has been so long entitled to demand as 
a right. 

But, Sir, to return from this digression — the jealousy which the 
People of these States felt on this point, appears more clearly 
when we consider this elective right as a State power in connection 
with other somewhat analogous parts of the Constitution. The 
scrupulous care with which they secured the exercise of this power 
from the interference of Congress is worth our notice here. The 
Constitution has provided that the U times and manner" of the 
elections for Senators and Representatives prescribed by the State 
Legislatures, may be altered by Congress; but the choice of the 
Presidential electors is taken completely beyond the reach of any 
interference by the other States, and all power over that subject 
is entirely withheld from the Congress. In the transfer of the 
election to the House of Representatives on the occurrence of the 
contingency which devolves the election on that body, though the 
numerical power of the large States has been surrendered 
and the small States in that event receive their equivalent 
for the loss of their equality in the primary election, yet 
the same federative principle is preserved in the ballot. 4e The re- 
presentation from each State shall have one vote." If, Sir, we 
examine this Constitution and reflect on the symmetry and har- 
mony of its structure and the complex and seemingly irreconcila- 
ble principles on which the political interests of the States were 
to be united and preserved in the Federative system, and consider 
only to what degree the prosperity and happiness of this nation 
has already advanced under its auspicious influence, we are struck 
with wonder and admiration that it is the work of human wisdom only. 

The right of choosing electors in their own way, being thus re- 
tained by the States by the original compact of the Constitution. 



14 

is to be exercised as they only shall deem best for the preservatioa 
of their just political importance in the Union. When the large 
States consent to surrender it, or suffer themselves to be broken 
up into fragments under the district system of an amendment 
which proposes to melt down into one common mass the People of 
the several States, they have destroyed their strength and will at 
last find their real interests sacrificed by the operation of this dis- 
tracting policy. Every step which is taken towards this system 
approximates to a consolidation, which must finally annihilate 
their influence in the Confederacy. The amendment of the honor- 
able gentleman from South Carolina strikes at the vitality of their 
political power and prostrates them at a single blow. Fasten this 
fatal system upon them by Constitutional authority and the mea- 
sure can never be retraced. If in the progress of the Government, 
peculiar natural advantages, the enterprize of the People or any 
causes whatever have changed the relative power of the free 
States in the Presidential election, it is not only what was fore- 
seen at the adoption of the Constitution as probable, but they gave 
in the compact a fair equivalent, and what was then received as 
satisfactory if not all which was asked. But, it is not the free 
States alone which are concerned in the consequences which must 
result from this dismemberment of the power of the States. It is 
a surrender of the sovereignty of all, and every innovation of prin- 
ciple which disturbs the original adjustment of the power of the 
States and gives the system an impulse towards an unmixed demo- 
cracy, secretly undermines their security. The relative ratio of 
increase in population among the States, has steadily, from the 
first adoption of the Constitution, advanced in one direction.— 
Every successive census and apportionment of representation here 
indicates an approach to that point which may give to the free 
States two-thirds of the numerical political strength of this House. 
The State sovereignties now hold this power in check, but every 
movement which disturbs their stability in this system weakens 
the foundations of the Government. The State which I have the 
honor partly to represent, has as deep a stake in the preservation 
of this Government as the smallest State in the Union. I trust 
that she will forever feel how closely she is allied to them al! in 
the common interests, the prosperity and the common glory of the 
nation. 

But, sir, if this compact between these States is now to be re- 
formed on a different basis from that on which it was originally 
established, and it were even desirable to place the elective power 
in the choice of the President only (without touching any other 
part of the system) on the principles which the gentleman from 
South Carolina has urged in support of his amendment, I ask if he 
is ready to adopt them to their true extent? If it is now expedient 
to adjust this power on the principles of a purely democratic elec- 
tion, which shall respect the will of an actual majority of the Peo- 
ple, will he consent that we meet him with his own arguments and 
conform this compact to his own theory? The operation of the sys- 
tem is confessedly unequal and partial in many respects, and was 



15 

originally admitted to be so. But if we are now to expunge those 
features of this part of the system which produce these inequall- 
ties of political power among different portions of the People, why 
does he not propose at once to establish a popular election within 
the States and apportion the electoral power equally between them 
according to their respective numbers of free citizens? Will he 
consent to give up the power which many of the States have re- 
tained in this election on other principles? The amendment now 
before us preserves this inequality still, and so far from being cal- 
culated to obtain in the election of the President the will of an 
actual majority of the People, must operate on principles which 
may defeat the choice of that majority and yet unite a majority of 
electoral votes in favor of some one candidate. It appears to me 
that, in this respect, the amendment does not conform to the prin- 
ciples on which it is supported — and it must undergo at least one 
essential modification, before it can produce the result which the 
gentleman from South Carolina deems so important to be attained 
in the election of the President. The reservation of power which 
it contains, growing out of the extent of the slave population of the 
States, is contradictory to the principles on which he so highly re- 
commends it to our favor. 

If, then, Sir, I have not mistaken in this discussion the first 
principles ot the Constitution, this part of the amendment before 
us is incompatible with our system of Government. It has been 
supported, however, by several considerations growing out of the 
operation of this elective power, which require some examination 
before we assent even to its expediency. The gentleman from South 
Carolina entered into a comparison between the merits of the dis- 
trict and general ticket systems in the United States, and inferred 
from the views which he presented to us, that the former was to 
be preferred. He introduced this part of the discussion by stat- 
ing that whatever might be the rule, it was desirable that it 
should be uniform in all the States. This, Sir. must depend 
on the extent to which we may be disposed to apply this 
principle in the exercise of the elective power, in any consti- 
tutional amendment upon which we may finally agree/ If uni- 
formity is desirable, (and it may be more or less so in all sys- 
tems,) it is most consonant to a representative system, to in- 
troduce that uniformity of rights which tends most to equality 
not only in form but in more substantial and important matters. 
If it is admitted that the elective right is a State power, the mode 
of choosing electors must be adjusted by their particular views of 
their own interests and on principles which they themselves think 
to be most conducive to the security of their just influence in the 
Presidential election. The People of the several States, having 
subjected this right to their own regulation, may find much of its 
value to consist in preserving it under their own control. If per- 
fect equality of political power can be attained in all the States, I 
am not certain that I should not prefer to adopt the district system: 
but under the present distribution of the elective power, (which 
this amendment leaves untouched) there is not to my mind any 
value in this principle of uniformity but its name, and its introdue- 



16 

tion may be adapted to produce very great inequalities in the results 
of its operation. The comparison which the gentleman drew with 
great accuracy, between the present operations of the different 
elective systems adopted in the States of New York and Virginia, 
presented the results of these diverse adjustments of this State 
power in a very striking light. It may well happen in so laige a 
State as New York, where no direct common interest or general 
influence is in active operation, that her electoral vote may be di- 
vided between two persons in the ratio of 19 to 17. while in Vir- 
ginia her undivided strength of 24 votes may be given to one of the 
candidates, and thus produce the singular result that the effectual 
power of New York in the election would stand, as the gentle- 
man justly concluded, compared with Virginia, as only 2 to 24. 
He asked us, '• if such injustice could be tolerated?" There is a 
plain remedy for all this yet within the control of the People of 
New York, which may preserve to that State her real elective pow- 
er and by which these States may both stand on principles of uni- 
formity and at the same time preserve also their constitutional 
equality of right in the election. To correct this possible unequal 
result by districting the State of Virginia, might virtually annihi- 
late the entire power of both these large States — but if New York 
should change her present system and adopt the plan of a general 
ticket, she may resume her proper influence, and both States may 
retain their respective constitutional power in the Presidential elec- 
tion. Distraction of public opinion is indeed a great evil in any 
of the States, but the remedy is not to be found in the diffusion of 
a principle among them all, which necessarily tends to spread that 
evil with it wider. If the district system is so much more repub- 
lican in principle and truly democratic in its operation, that the 
spirit of our Constitution in the adjustment of the power of the 
States, required its adoption, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and other 
large States would probably before this time have discovered the 
political virtue of such a system. One system must indeed be ne- 
cessarily better than another, as the honorable gentleman from 
South Carolina justly said. As a general abstract proposition it 
may be undeniable, if the objects which the several States desire 
to attain be the same and they have the same interest to cherish, 
and there exists at the same time no unjust inequality between 
them. But it is clearly not better that some of the States should 
risque the effect of an amendment to the Constitution which may 
jeopard by any change of system those interests, for the preser- 
vation of which they became parties to the compact, or destroy 
the rights which they have reserved to themselves under it. 

It is said by the honorable gentleman, that the operation of a 
general ticket destroys the vote of the minority in a State and 
that the consequence of that svstem is virtually to transfer the 
votes of that minority to a candidate whom they perhaps dislike or 
abhor. This argument conceals within itself a fatal error in prin- 
ciple, It indirectly assumes, clothe it in what dress we may, that 
minorities are entitled to representation as well as majorities. If 
there is any soundness in the position or any foundation for com-? 



*3f 

plaint, we must recollect that the same result must happen more 
or less not only in the district system, but in all elective systems 
whatever. The only real difference in principle in the two plans 
before us, is, that the minority on the plan of a general ticket 
may be much larger than the minority of a mere fragment of a 
State on the district system: or, we should rather say that such a 
minority appears larger only because it is a congregation of lesser 
minorities. But it can never be admitted as a just foundation for 
any argument whatever in any elective government or system, 
operating in a large or small State or any where, that the minority 
have any rights like these. If in the choice of the President the 
elective power is a State power, the general ticket system is foun- 
ded on sounder elective principles than the district plan; and it is, 
a fortiori, more so if this part of the Constitution was adjusted on 
the principle assumed by the honorable gentleman, tha* the object 
of the Constitution was to obtain the sense of a majority of the 
People of the United States in that election. The first and only 
certain mode of obtaining the sense of a majority in a particular 
State or of the whole People, must necessarily be by a general 
vote throughout that State or the Union. If a general vote in the 
Union is not resorted to, the next mode of ascertaining or rather 
approximating to the will of a majority, would seem to be the dis- 
tribution of the elective right afnoiig the largest masses practica- 
ble. It is true that if you divide the entire vote even into two 
masses only in the election, a single chance is created that the 
minority may perhaps control (for they might clearly paralyze) the 
majority. The more you multiply the number of these masses, 
the further we remove the final result from that which we profess 
to attain — the will of a majority of the whole Union. To illus- 
trate the principle for which the gentleman contends, he supposes 
a case might happen, in which by the general ticket system the 
vote of the State of New York might stand between two persons 
in the ratio of nineteen to seventeen — that, under that plan, the 
votes of the minority, which may have been designed by the " Peo- 
ple" to defeat a particular candidate, are totally sunk in the est! 
mate of the vote of the "State." This only proves, iir, that the mino- 
rity in such a case must submit to the will of a majority. There is some 
error in this argument arising from the use of terms. It would, 
in my opinion, be more correct to say that the persons who com- 
pose such a minority may have failed in their expectation of de- 
feating the sense of the People: for the will of the State and the 
will ot the People of a State are merely convertible terms when 
we speak of the Presidential election. There cannot in my opi- 
nion, Sir, be contrived by any ingenuity, a scheme which may so 
effectually defeat not only the will of the People of the several 
States but of the majority of the Union as the district system. It 
carries within itself the chances of that result, multiplied in the 
same proportion that we increase the number of the districts in a 
State or their aggregate in the Union. Under the general ticket 
system and throwing out of the account the votes derived from 
Senatorial representation, no person can be elected unless he ob- 



18 

tains a majority of the electoral votes in the gift of the People, 
voting on the basis of their true constitutional power — by States, 
If there is occasionally any inequality under the system of voting 
by States, like that which the gentleman from South Carolina sup- 
posed in the comparison which he drew between the separate re- 
sult of the election in New York and Pennsylvania, voting by 
States, and the result of a vote in those States if united in one 
common mass, these inequalities are much more striking and more 
highly mischievous under the district system. It is by this system 
that the minority of a State may effectually defeat the will of a ma- 
jority. Let us consider what may be its effect on the vote of New 
York in the election of a President, on a division of the popular 
power of that State into thirty-six electoral districts. Let U3 sup- 
pose that the aggregate of all the surplus majorities in nineteen of 
these districts, every one of which are in favor of one person, is 
fifteen thousand votes — and that the aggregate of these majorities in 
the remaining seventeen districts, all of whom are for a different 
person, amount to twenty thousand. The effect of this system is 
in that case, certainly to defeat the will of the People as a State, 
and to give to the minority more efficient power in the election 
than the majority. If we trace the consequences of this plan still 
further, we shall find that it may happen that a single district may 
give a greater majority, for instance a majority often thousand for 
one person, when the aggregate of majorities in the whole remain- 
ing thirty -five may be only five or nine thousand for a'different per- 
son; and in such a case, the power of a minority under the dis- 
trict system is to that of an actual majority in the State, as thirty- 
five to one! This effect of the system is by no means problemati- 
cal. I am not indulging in fanciful theories on its consequences 
in the States and its probable tendency to defeat public opinion. 
Experience has already, in numerous instances, confirmed the truth 
of these its fatal effects on the will of the People. The history 
of many elections in the States which have adopted that plan, if 
they are examined, must show that such is its tendency. If the 
general ticket system, on any political hypothesis of the Consti- 
tution, occasionally disregards here and there in the States the 
minority of her votes, the district system within such a State 
directly leads to the still more heretical anomaly of principle, 
which defeats the will of the majority or completely paralyzes the 
power of the State. Such a State may as well at once be struck out 
of the political system in the Presidential election. It is a mockery 
to call for the expression of the will of the People when the very or- 
ganization on which we profess to obtain it fairly, is only calculat- 
ed to defeat it altogether. Under the general ticket system, the 
true original principles on which this elective power among the- 
States was adjusted by tlie Constitution is completely preserved 
and the will of the People of the several States, as States, is strict- 
ly regarded and takes its full effect on the election of the Presi- 
dent. Before we adopt any amendment whatever to any part of 
the Constitution, we must be satisfied that it proposes some valu- 
able improvement to the system. The question before us is not 
altogether even whether under the principles on which this power 



19 

was sctUed among the States, there may not be some necessary 
inequality or some incidental inconveniences. It is possible that 
it can be improved — but we are first to determine whether the plan 
proposed by the honorable gentleman from South Carolina is a bet- 
ter one, and so adapted in its operation as to remedy these inequal- 
ities and inconveniences. Until we are satisfied on that point, I 
trust we shall not give our assent to it. If the general will of the 
People of all the States as a common mass, is the end which it 
proposes to respect, it is in my opinion, better calculated to de- 
feat the very object which it professes to attain with so much 
certainty. 

It is further urged in support of the introduction of this system, 
that it is adapted to remedy the evils which have sprung up in ma- 
ny of the States from the establishment of what has been common- 
ly called tiie caucus system — that the necessary consequence of 
the general ticket plan is to throw the power of the States into the 
hands of political managers, who wield this elective pow^r for the 
accomplshment of their own political purposes. Whatever may be 
the names which we may give to systems of this sort — whether we 
denominate them as caucusses or if, as in Pennsylvania, they as- 
sume the somewhat less offensive appellation of conventions, I shall 
not here enter into any particular examination of their merits, nor 
shall I differ at all from the justice of the views of these systems 
which have been presented to us or are to be inferred from the 
lights in which they were presented by the argument of the honor- 
able gentleman from Snuth Carolina. But, Sir, the true remedy 
after all, against the operations of these party systems is to be 
found in the stern independence, sagacity and integrity of the 
People. The moral power of this system can only be sustain- 
ed by public opinion co-operating with it to the same common^ 
end It may in some degree tend to the more perfect organiza- 
tion of party — its discipline, efficiency and activity; but it is to 
be most successfully met by public opinion, and its operations de- 
feated by the independent exercise of the elective power of the Peo- 
ple. It is not in the Presidential election alone that it finds the 
policy which has given it existence in the States; and the district 
system in that election will not annihilate the party interests which 
sustain it. New York has adopted the district plan in that elec* 
tion and yet this system has been there revived — perhaps, with as 
much efficiency as it ever had. In the choice of electors, I doubt if 
the district system will provide a complete remedy against the party 
influence of this political machinery, even at the risque of another 
evil, the fatal annihilation of the elective power of a State. So 
long as this party system collects itself at one point, its evils are 
more fully exposed and accurately judged of. It awakens thejea- 
lousy and keeps alive the vigilance of the People. It then pre- 
sents a single power, against which the moral energies of a whole 
State may be directed, and if crushed in such a contest, it rescues 
from the general wreck no remnant of the elective power. Dif- 
fuse it and it still operates silently and unseen. The "central 
power' still keeps in motion in other forms the elements of party 



20 

Organisation, and it will still find its way to the remotest cornera 
of a State. So long as it remains concentrated, its power may be 
subdued; but diffuse it, and it carries its contaminating influence 
throughout the body politic, tainting the whole system and corrupt- 
ing the vitality of our social institutions. 

The view which the honorable gentleman presented to us of the 
effect said to have been produced in Maryland by a few votes on 
Some occasion, from which it was inferred that only ten or a dozen 
men, composing a surplus majority, produced an entire political 
revolution in that State, attributes much more to their elective 
power than they are entitled to. It is not the surplus over a bare 
majority whose will alone determines any question. These are but 
the component parts which constitute the whole number of voters 
which make up the entire mass of the majority. The Constitution 
was adopted in the Convention of Virginia by only ten votes, and 
the late declaration of war passed one branch of Congress by a ma- 
jority of only four or five votes. It can hardly be considered as 
just to say, that ten men adopted the Constitution of Virginia and 
half a dozen only declared the war against Great Bntain. This 
notion was on that occasion carried so far, that I well recollect to 
have seen or heard of a book written soon after that war commen- 
ced, the scope of which was gravely designed to prove the extreme 
impolicy and absurdity of going to war on the vote of five or six 
men only ! A member of this House from the State of Pennsylva- 
nia, and one of the Representatives from the city of Philadelphia 
or its vicinity, was once returned here by a majority ot only one 
vote out often or twelve thousand; but we should hardly say, that 
he was elected by one man, or if we do adopt that absurdity, we 
might as well add that as he was elected by one person, he was to 
be considered here as representing that person only. 

On the other branch of these amendments included in the pro- 
positions before us, we could have voted more satisfactorily if the 
resolution itself contained the details which the honorable gentle- 
man suggested in his remarks to be his intention to couple with this 
part of the amendment. He states that if we should agree to take 
the ultimate choice of a President from Congress, he proposes to 
provide for the contingency of a second election, by sending back 
to the People either the two highest candidates or the persons hav- 
ing the two highest numbers of votes, (I did not precisely under- 
stand which, and it is immaterial to the view which I shall take of 
the proposition,) for a second choice by the People, voting through- 
out the States by districts, between such persons only. We must 
therefore treat this resolution and this plan as one proposition, 
and consider its merits in connection with such a system. The 
principal argument in favor of taking the election from this House 
is founded on the danger that this power may be abusod in the hands 
of the Representatives of the several States here. This argument 
directs itself against the existence of all political power and all 
institutions of Government among men. If the innocent and pure 
are most liable to fall, by reason of their too confident security, this 
power, here might be more dangerous still. Now, Sir,- to my mintl 



21 

tills species of argument drawn from the possible abuse of political 
power in all governments, only proves that it is much better to go 
back at once to a state of nature an I derive our notions of govern- 
ment from the social institutions (if social they are in any sense.) 
of the aborigines in our vicinity. If this argument is received by 
any one who is willing to act on the faith of it, it may present to 
him inducements to abandon civilized society and unite himself to 
the savage tribes; but it can receive but little favorable considera- 
tion any where, when we remember that in all our forms of govern- 
ment, there are restraints, both moral and political, which entitle 
all public bodies to some confidence. The obligations of an oath 
and of honor — the power of conscious virtue and the love of one's 
country are securities which bind men to their integrity every 
where. If this H<>use is not to be trusted by the People to whom 
it is directly responsible and no confidence is to be reposed on our 
integrity in this point, it deserves but very little on any other. 
But, Sir, the honorable gentleman has derived much of the force of 
this argument from the liability of this House to be corrupted by 
men in power. This illustration is but the same argument pre- 
sented in another posture. The one is founded on the innate de- 
pravity of the body itself, and the other on the clanger of its con- 
tamination from evil men. If we indulge in the conclusions which 
are drawn from these considerations, we may come to the conclu- 
sion at last that the People themselves are not to be trusted in 
the exercise of their elective rights. If those who are elected di- 
rectly from the mass of the People are not to be trusted at all, how 
dangerous might a direct election by the People of their Presi- 
dent prove to be, on the hypothesis of the honorable gentleman. If 
this House is so peculiarly liable to be misled or corrupted by 
men in power, is there nothing to be apprehended among the Peo- 
ple from men out of power ? Whatever may be the extent of the 
influence which men in power may obtain in this House by " fawn- 
ing and flattery," these is some reason in ail elective governments, 
for the People also to be on their guard against the arts of men out 
of power, who in the disguise of friends of the People, may flatter 
their pride, fawn upon their favor and finally steal away their 
rights. The evidences of this danger are neither few nor obscure 
in history. Among all the views from other times and other coun- 
tries, which the honorable gentleman drew to his argument, he 
might have found in the history of every Republic at least, some 
striking illustrations of this danger. My own reflections on the 
nature of this Government have led me to a conclusion directly 
opposite to that of the honorable gentleman. It this Government 
is to be demolished, it will never ftnd the weapons of its destruction 
in the hands of men in power. The Prsetorian bands will never be 
led up to that fatal work from this House. There are great mas- 
ses of feeling in different parts of the nation and common interests 
which affect great sectional portions of the country, which must 

be first kiflamed and put in motion by those who seek for power 

the spirit of anarchy will say to the North, %i your commerce is to be 
annihilated" — to the South, "your internal security is in danger" 



22 

—and to the West, *'your inheritances are to be taken from yau 
and your political power is trampled upon" — we may then look 
among the People for those who, flattering their prejudices — foment- 
ing their passions — stirring up the deadly elements of party hatred 
and exasperating the bitterest feelings of human infirmity, per- 
suade them to consider their public men and statesmen as traitors 
to their interests and to treat them as public enemies. Then, Sir, 
we may find amid the confusion of this tumult of passion and popu- 
lar phrenzy, tyranny, in its incipient garb and yet unfledged with 
power, mounting itself on " young ambition's lowly ladder." If 
we are really so unfit to be trusted and so little disposed to re- 
gard publicopinion and the rights and will of our constituents, the 
honorable gentleman might have spared all his labor to convince 
us of the propriety of this amendment. Experience and the histo- 
ry of cur own country have not, in my opinion, yet shown that 
either the integrity of this House or the country is ever to be cor- 
rupted by Executive influence or made subservient to the will of 
that Department. During the Presidential term of Washington 
and with all the great and well-deserved moral power of his char- 
acter, the House of Representatives at times feebly supported his 
general policy in the administration of the Government. The ad- 
ministration of his successor closed its term after a very doubtful 
support by the Legislature and the first Congress which convened 
in the next year, reversed most of its public policy by decisive ma- 
jorities. Mr. Jefferson was elected by the House of Representa- 
tives^ and if the abstract principles which the honorable gentleman 
has offered us as the tests by which we are to be governed in mak- 
ing up our judgment on the conduct of public men and the motives' 
which guide them in the distribution of patronage are just, to what 
a deplorable situation should we reduce the respectability and mo- 
ral value of thathigh station in the Government of this free coun- 
try. Can it be believed on any moral system, that the Executive 
patronage in the earlier periods - of Mr. Jefferson's administration 
or in any part of it, was distributed as the wages of political iniqui- 
ty? — or that the triumphant majorities which supported the general 
policy of his administration, were maintained by Executive influ- 
ence? — or that the decided support which his successor (who would 
seem from the remarks of the honorable gentleman, to have been 
endowed with political sagacity scarcely competent to select from 
the country a cabinet) found during his whole term in both branch- 
es of Congress to all his public measures, was preserved by the 
power of his personal influence or even of his patronage? During 
the next administration, I may appeal to many who are yethereto 
say, if during the greatest part of the last eight years, there has 
been scarcely a time when the whole power of Executive influence 
could carry any favorite measure through the House. On many ot 
the most important subjects of general policy, the opinions of this 
House and the Executive have been essentially variant — and yet 
I believe it will be found that a greater number of appointments 
to public office of members of both branches of Congress, has not 
happened under any administration. I well recollect that a mem- 



2B 

ber of the other branch of the Legislature even accepted (and, 
doubtless, solicited) as a miserable crumb from the Executive ta- 
ble, the paltry place of a collectorship on one of the Northern Lakes, 
I can never bring my mind or my feelings as an American, to suf- 
fer myself so to judge of otfr Executives as to estimate the mo- 
tives which may actuate them by the hard rules which the gentle- 
man from South Carolina assumes — let them have come to that 
high station by a constitutional election under any circumstances 
whatever. They are tests of such severity that no man can stand 
the trial, if the Executive appoints his friends to office, 'tis cor- 
ruption — if he appoints his enemies, 'tis corruption still. If he ap- 
points his friends, he pays — if his enemies, he buys! Are these, 
Sir, the unsparing judgments which a generous People will pass 
upon their public men? Are we to cherish for a moment, 
doctrines which lead to such denunciations of all that we are 
taught by our national pride and the character uf our institutions 
to respect? What should we say of the justice of other nations, 
should they apply to our free Government these bitter reproaches ? 
Let the advocates of the divine rights of monarchy and Kings 
themselves, when they behold this great fabric of civil liberty, saj 
in the envy of their heart3, 

* How much, O Sun ! I hate th\ beams*' — 

but let us never apply to our public men those judgments which may 
lead the pettiest Prince of Europe to look down upon the President 
of this free and enlightened People with contempt. The People of 
this country will not respond to the sentiments which we have 
heard. Believe me, Sir, they are too jealous of their own honor 
and the reputation of their government and too generous in their 
nature, to cherish such injustice to their own institutions and their 
own statesmen. If we invoke these judgments upon those who 
hold the most eminent stations in the government, by what rule 
shall we ask them to judge of us? When Mr. Madison called from 
his retirement in that State which you, Mr. Chairman, have the 
honor to represent, to the public service of the country one of her 
most illustrious citizens and public benefactors, whose name and 
memory will be revered as long as distinguished talents and emi- 
nent public virtue shall be respected and honored any where, was 
Bayard — purchased? If the living only were involved in these 
tests of public integrity, we could bear them with more compo- 
sure — but we must certainly wish that those judgments had been 
spared which may inscribe a sentence so revolting to our feelings 
on the sanctuary of the dead. When more recently, one of our 
most excellent and accomplished men was called from these seats 
to the service of his country, was Poinsett — bought? If it is hon- 
orable to die in the service of one's country, is it disreputable to 
live in the public confidence or to serve in its public councils? But 
I forbear to press these illustrations further. I do not deny that 
the power of appointment has been abused by some and may be by 
all men. But it is not every exercise of what is somewhat mis- 
named when we call it Executive patronage, which is to be denounc- 
ed as a defiling thing which contaminates all the healthful loufl- 



24 

tains of public virtue. Is it to become a stigma on the fame of 
men that they are called to the service or the councils of their 
country even from this House? If the interests of the country are 
better served, I know not why the path of honorable fame and hon- 
orable emulation may not be as pure through this House as through 
any other branch of the Government, or as it may be any where. 
But few men have risen to eminence among us or partaken of the 
highest confidence of the country, who have not first served her in 
her elective public councils. JefT.rson and Adams, Hamilton and 
Madison— and Washington — were educated in these schools of 
political experience. The gentleman from South Carolina told us, 
with great justice, that in England there has scarcely been a dis- 
tinguished public man f >r a century who has not first been called 
to the House of Commons by the People of that country — and to 
this I may add that, flagrantly corrupt as the gentleman present- 
ed that political body to us — as the very purchased vassals of the 
Crown — these eminent and accomplished statesmen were taken 
from the Parliament and called to those exalted stations in the 
government of that country on which they have conferred so much 
honor. As freemen must be educated to liberty (and there is nothing 
more true) so public men must be educated for public stations. I 
do not believe in the existence of men as statesmen by instinct. 
One may be born with some qualities which may be suitable for 
other stations. Nature may, for instance, confer upon a. man 
many qualities of a good soldier — but political science is a moral 
acquirement. To attain those high stations in public confidence 
which are so honorable in a free country, it u necessary that one 
should devote a long life to the study of her laws and institutions 
— her history — her domestic and foreign relations — the principles 
of her public policy — the temper of her People — the genius of her 
political system — and the spirit of her government — nor even then 
may he expect the People to confer upon him their highest honors, 
until he has served in their Senates, passed the ordeal of public 
opinion as a statesman and shown that he possesses that profound 
talent, those sound political principles and great moral qualifica- 
tions, which alone can adorn her public councils and perpetuate 
the civil liberties of the country. It is there that he learns how 
precious these civil liberties are — it is there that he feels the sanc- 
tity of the Constitution — it is there that he draws from experience 
the lessons of political wisdom, and it is there that he shows his fit- 
ness to be trusted with pow r er. When it ceases to be honorable 
to be here, this House must become a scandal to the nation — a 
by-word among the People — a reproach to the government — the 
scoffof monarchy, and a curse to freedom. Why, then, should we 
treat of it as only corruptible and judge of it on abstract princi- 
ples deduced from the mysteries of political metaphysics and the 
" philosophy of human nature r" The illustrations which the hon. 
gentleman has drawn from the history of Rome are not at all ap- 
plicable to this country. I have long ceased to apprehend any 
danger founded on the existence of those causes here which de- 



25 

stroyed that government. It was a Republic (if it now deserves 
that name) of a single city — uneducated and unenlightened — of 
condensed population, and corrupted in morals. Its dissolu- 
tion only proves that the infuriated rabble of Rome, pinch- 
ed up by famine or the fear of it, or dazzled by the glare of 
military renown, arrayed themselves under the contending 
chieftains of that city and were led on by lawless force and 
blind infatuation, to imbrue their hands in the blood of her 
best citizens, and to demolish all law — and order — and the govern- 
ment itself. The history of these atrocious times only further 
shows that the vassals of Pompey and Csesar, marshalled in the 
ranks of these military despots, were at last persuaded to cut each 
others throats. But, sir, I trust there are no analogies in this his- 
tory which we can ever apply to the educated and enlightened 
population of our own country. Nor is there any more reason to 
apprehend in all future time, so long as this government shall 
stand and its People shall enjoy the blessings of education and 
feel the obligations and influences of religion, that we shall find 
any moral parrallel between the election of a President and the ab- 
surd mockery and lawless violence of a Polish Diet. This Union is 
not,in my judgment,destined to be severed by such violences as these. 
Its dissolution is rather to be expected from the operation of other 
causes. It can only be accomplished by first impairing the confi- 
dence of the People in the integrity of their Representatives and 
its public councils — in raising up against it the States by violating 
their rights and in combining against the Government the moral 
power of the country. Then, Sir, you will find how weak this po- 
litical system is without this support from the nation and it will 
expire without a struggle. The security for the integrity of this 
House is to be found in its responsibility to public opinion. This 
has hitherto proved itself to be an active and vigilant agent in 
the political system of all our free institutions, and as long as the 
People are true to their principles and themselves, we may hope 
that this Government will stand. We may long rely, I trust, on. 
their sagacity, independence and patriotism for its stability. 
Whatever fears we may entertain of the evils of the Caucus sys- 
tem or the integrity of this House in the Presidential election, it 
is to this tribunal that we must all answer. Postpone the elections 
in the States until after the Congressional term has expired and 
you give this principle its full operation. In the State which I 
have the honor partly to represent, its power has lately been most 
signally illustrated/Out of fifteen members who attended the Cau- 
cus of 1824, an honorable member whom I have in my eye, (Mr, 
Cambreleng) is the only spared monument among us to remind 
the delegation of the existence of the system. If one of the objects 
?f this amendment is to destroy the operations of any " central 
power" whatever by taking the election from the House of Re- 
presentatives it is questionable in my judgment, whether this 
end will be effectually accomplished. There is one security, even 
under the Caucus system, whenever the election comes to this 
House, which mitigates its inconveniences aad evils in oihsr re- 
4 



26 

spects. The members here vote under sacred obligations, which 
the Constitution respects as its security for their integrity and 
they are responsible to their constituents. But if you take away 
this security we may raise up in its place an irresponsible Caucus, 
which is beyond even the control of public opinion. It will not be 
a caucus ©f the members of these Houses. It will become a com- 
bination of political adventurers without doors, who will there or- 
ganize their schemes of power and attract to their councils a host 
of hungry expectants. When the election shall go back to the 
People a second time, they will be found engaged in poisoning 
their minds and rendering the public measures of their Govern- 
ment disreputable in their estimation. They will attack the prin- 
ciples on which public opinion should be founded and perplex the 
People with political disquisitions. The master spirits will not 
be seen in the public eye ; and while they and their confederates, 
in the profoundest conclave, vainly plot the means of successfully 
storming the highest battlements of the Constitution which ob- 
struct their path to power — public opinion and the virtue of the 
People — others shall, as patriots, 

" Retreated in a silent valley, sing 

M Their own heroic deeds" 

" Others apart, sat on a hill retir'd, 

" and reasoned high 

" Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate, 
u And found no end in wandering mazes lost. 
***** 

" Vain reason all, and false philosophy ! 
•* Yet, with a pleasing sorcery, could charm 
" Pain, for a while, and anguish — and excite 
M Fallacious hope." — 

In all my reflections on the various propositions which have 
been made from time to time to amend the Constitution in the 
election of the President, I have come to the conclusion that the 
best plan for us is to go back to the original system. Although 
neither that or the amendment of 1802, can yet be said to have 
bad a fair experiment, yet if any thing is to be done, it is wisest, 
in my opinion, to retrace our steps. That plan contained within 
itself at least an effectual remedy against the operations of the 
caucus system. Although no amendment can prevent a systema- 
tic preconcert of party in the election, yet it wasinthe power of any 
of the small States or a few electors — perhaps one — under that ar- 
rangement of the elective power, to defeat the election of a particu- 
lar party candidate as President. It was a valuable improvement 
on the pure democratic principle in that election, and was calcu- 
lated always to secure in the two highest stations of the Govern- 
ment, public men of the first grade of character. The small States 
lost much of their power when they gave up this system. The cau- 
cus system received its perfection from that amendment. In rela- 
tion to the Vice Presidency, it is calculated to operate, in bad 
times, as a mere bounty of twenty thousand dollars for personal in- 
fluence. Much as the small States lost by that amendment* the 
plan now offered by the honorable gentleman from South Carolina 



27 

proposes in effect to take away from them the only remnant of 
their power. The amount of political power which they are now 
to retain and the benefit which they are to derive from its adop- 
tion is to reduce them to their original electoral votes under eve- 
ry contingency, except the remote chance of a tie in the second 
election. If they can find an equivalent in districting the large 
States, for the loss of what they yet retain, they will doubtless be 
in favor of the amendment. Ihere is, in my opinion, no analogy, 
as* the honorable gentleman stated, between this and the original 
system. It is indeed true that two candidates only are to be sent 
back for the second choice, but the large States are yet to retain 
in that event the whole number of their electoral votes. 

The plan of sending back to the People only the two highest 
candidates is founded on the assumption that in case a majority 
of the People should not unite in the first instance on any person, 
their second choice must necessarily be for one of the two highest. 
In this respect, the chance of electing the person whom the Peo- 
ple might select in the sec nd election is as much, if not more re- 
mote than under an election by the House on the existing plan 
which presents three persons for our choice. It is far from being 
certain that in every case, the second preference of a majority 
of the People would be for one of (he two highest. It may happen 
that a particular candidate who might, by chance, obtain- the se- 
cond or even the greatest number of votes might be so obnoxious, 
that those who voted for the other two out of the three highest, 
would desire to unite in the second election on the least of the 
three. We have already had four persons voted for at the Presi- 
dential election and the number is perhaps rather to be generally 
expected to increase than to diminish. The two highest may, 
in many elections, have but a comparatively small proportion 
of votes which will be very far from a near approximation to 
a majority. Under the plan now offered, the People may be ne- 
cessarily coerced themselves to elect a President against their will. 
There is to be no alternative more congenial to the feelings or 
wishes of the actual majority, and the scheme in such a case is 
calculated to defeat public opinion. It has not in many respects 
even the comparative advantages of a choice by plurality in the se- 
cond election. If it was admitted, out of deference to the argu- 
ment, that a choice by the House of Representatives out of the 
three highest by a majority of States, would in many cases de- 
feat the wishes of the majority of the People, it is not improbable 
that the plan now offered would much oftener produce that result. 
It proceeds on the principle that it is of necessity to be inferred 
that a majority would unite on one of the two highest pluralities, 
and as it sets out on this false hypothesis, it leads in the conclu- 
sion to its own refutation and brings the argument thus founded 
on unsound abstract principlesdirectly to the reductio ad absurdum. 
The error lies in the premises and it is not singular that the de- 
duction should be equally vicious in principle. 

But, Sir, I will detain you no longer with my views of the in- 
congruity of the principles on which thesQ propositions rest— -the 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



022 020 487 A 



2S 



mefficacy of the amendment to accomplish even its professed ends 
and its impolitic and dangerous disturbance of the rights of the 
States. I ask of the committee if the present period is auspicious to 
the renovation of this compact. When this Constitution was framed, 
we had been recently chastened by adversity and the States then 
deeply felt how great their mutual obligations were and they 
had no interest but to be just. But circumstances and the times 
have changed — and we are now in the days of our prosperity. The 
relative population and power of the States are no longer the same- 
prejudices too firmly established, have crept in and parties have 
arisen among us. Great sectional interests have sprung up in the 
States and a whole nation has been brought into existence beyond 
the mountains. Public feeling has lately been deeply agitated and 
the country is not quiet. I submit it to the dispassionate judg- 
ment of this committee to say if it is now discreet to agitate this 
subject. I trust there are no well-grounded apprehensions of any 
immediate danger to the country. I confess that there have been 
times when, in the ctififlicts of party and the convulsions of nation- 
al feeling, I have too credulously thought that the moral power of 
this Government was too weak to sustain the Uuion — but expe- 
rience has shown us that these fears are groundless. Though the 
collisions of separate and sectional interests may at times alarm 
the most confident, yet if we examine our history and consider 
how well our institutions have maintained our interests abroad, ad- 
vanced our common national glory and secured our civil liberties 
at home — and if we further look around us and view the sum of 
national prosperity and individual happiness which is enjoyed 
throughout our country, there is abundant consolation for our fears; 
and we may confidently trust that, under the blessing of Provi* 
dence, this empire of civil liberty will be perpetual. 



